A Quick Update

Hello Everyone!

It has been a busy couple of weeks.  I've had a lot of work shifts, which is good because rent is due tomorrow and baby needs some cashy. Even better, residuals for my TV episode have started coming in... woot woot!!  I love getting unexpected checks in the mail.  It may be one of the greatest things about this career.  It's like Christmas or your birthday when you get cards with unexpected checks from your relatives.  But let's be honest... my great grandmother's cousin never sent me a check like this one, baby!

It may seem quiet, but there is all sorts of stuff to share...including reworking my entire team of reps, didn't book a movie (womp womp), but booked another movie (huzzah!), interning at a big casting office, writing, working out and all the other insane nonsense that comes with building this crazy empire.

I'll tell you all the down and dirty details of it all soon, but right now I have to hit my yoga mat before I head to work.  (Man, I cannot WAIT for the day when I don't have to maintain a side job to support this dream.  It really is a pain in the ass.  Just sayin' Universe.  Wanna take care of that??  Like soon??)

Until then, keep on dreamin' on folks!!

Yours,
Anony

Anonymous Publicist

So far this publicity thing is going well, I guess.  Much like watching the breakdowns, it's watching a constant stream of event press releases for ones that fit a certain criteria.  My basic requirements at the moment are events that: 

• A) I can get into, 
• B) have media attention so someone will actually see me and, 
• C) I can get into.

My first impression?  There's a hell of a lot of stuff going on in Los Angeles.  Every day.  I'm talking 3-6 events a night to choose from.  Granted, not all of them fit the above criteria (namely A and C), but we're certainly not lacking in opportunity.

Still, I'm trying.  I'm getting my sea legs in this whole process since I am not working with a publicist.  Normally they would be doing this pitching business and just tell me what they got me into.  It feels a little wannabe to be asking for myself.  (And god knows I'm not getting myself any free clothes at this point.)

"Hi, my name is Anony and I'm an up-and-coming actress"..... blah blah blah, blatant self-promotion... add a little wit... include a picture so they can see I'm actually professional (and not half bad looking)... close with some sort of a well-crafted reason why I would "just love" to attend the event -- carefully omitting that I want to go to toot my own horn -- and viola!  There's my pitch email.  

So far I've gotten a few good responses from publicists I thought would totally ignore me.  I have one charity event confirmed and I'm wait-listed for another small premiere.  I don't know if "wait-listed" is just a standard euphemism for "no", but I guess we shall find out.  Much like auditioning and every other part of this business, it feels awkward at first but I'm sure it will become less so as we go along.  I've already recruited a friend to pretend to be my publicist down the road if it becomes necessary, but or now, I'll see where this gets me.  

Never a dull moment in this career path, that's for sure!

Smoke and Mirrors

"Anony, Anony! Look over here!"

"Anony, one more shot please."

"What will we see you in next, Anony?"

"Anony, do you have any charities that you're currently supporting?"

I am surrounded by chaos.  Cameras flash in my eyes and microphones are shoved up to my mouth.  I am praying to every god that has ever been invented that I don't look, sound or even smell like the terrified amateur that I am.  Ah man, do you think they've picked up on my lip quivering from too much uneasy smiling??  Oh shit, can they sense how totally awkward my hands feel??  Where do I stand next?  What the hell am I supposed to say???

Okay.  Rewind.  Backstory...

My agent and I have decided I need to play the Hollywood game a little more.  Or to be more precise, that I need to start playing the Hollywood game.  Up to this point, I've just been hustling the Hollywood business... the auditions, the mailings, the workshops... you know, the typical stuff.  Now it's time for me to start playing the game, bending the rules, fudging the details, adding a little smoke and mirrors to get a little (totally fabricated) heat on me. 

Yes.  Publicity. I'm hitting the publicity circuit and getting seen.   The details don't really matter, I just have to get out there and act like I'm the next hot thing in town.  All your favorite celebs do it, and all the people you've seen here and there (but have no idea what their actual names are) are out there doing the same thing.  (Only a lot of them are doing it with publicists. A luxury with a three-thousand-dollar-a-month price tag I don't yet have.)  Still, I was blessed with an ability to work any room and bullshit my way in (and out of) most anything.

So I found myself on the red carpet last week for a premiere for a shitty little indie film.  I've been on carpets before, but never quite like this.  Mostly I just walk by, have a friend snap a shot and move on without anyone really noticing I'm there.  This time I was announced.  I had ten or so photographers taking pictures of me (awkwardly) posing on the carpet.  I had multiple people interview me, which is weird because I was not in any way connected to the film.  Why am I here? Why am I seeing this film?  Uhhh... because I'm trying to get you people to notice me?!?  

I was a liiiiittle more suave than that.  After I got the first few awkward jitters out of me and saw the mechanics of how the whole process worked, I instantly relaxed into what comes incredibly naturally to me... being positive, witty and charming in the spotlight.  Fortunately, I am pretty quick on my feet and know how to put a decent sound bite together.  (I am a writer, as you know.)  I walked away at the end of the night filled with this incredible sense of energy.  I was a natural.  I wanted more.  I was born to do this shit!! (How cheesy am I?!?)  However, I certainly learned a few things:  

Publicity lesson #1: Always research everything you possibly can about the movie you're attending and the context in which it was filmed... oh, and formulate some sort of a positive opinion on the film and its message.  Good to have that in your back pocket going in because someone will ask you and "because my publicist sent me" is not a good answer.

You've heard it before, perception is everything in this business.  Once people start noticing you consistently around town, they start to feel like they should know who you are.  That's the game.  If I can fake my way into being someone worth noticing, people will start to notice.  But you know what I realized?  I AM someone worth noticing, so I'm not really faking anything.  I'm just nudging them into picking up on something they would have realized themselves eventually anyway. 

The truth? I have no idea if this will actually work.  It definitely feels early to me and incredibly phony.  I don't totally understand how it translates into more auditions, but my agent is convinced it will help, and I'm game for trying most anything to get this career off the ground.  As far as I'm concerned, I'm just adding a new element to my hustle.  

The most entertaining thing?  In faking my way on the carpet, I ended up hanging with a group of actors who do this regularly. We were chatting together  before the film started, away from the news people and rolling cameras.  Two of them also had no connection to the film but were just there to "support it"... translation: "my publicist sent me."  Two others openly admitted they knew the movie sucked and had no idea what it's shitty message was, but they faked their way through the interviews as well.  After that, I didn't feel like such a phony.  It's a game.  And I'm finally in it.

Bad Scripts and Botox

I have my sides for an audition and I've been putting it off for a couple days.  I don't like the script.  It's a badly written, stereotypical B-movie with D-list stars and a lame premise.  My character is stupid and the dialog is just terrible.

Aaaand my character is mid thirties.  Mid-thirties?!?  Hey, I know I get older each year, and there are definitely some things I've aged out of... but I'm pretty certain my twenties is not one of them.  I told my agent that I pouted for a half day about being called in as a mid-thirties woman.  He said, "When breakdowns are slow, you have to stretch.  Remember, you're an actor.  Better than a one-line 25 year old."

*sigh*

True.  And who am I kidding?  I'm still scrambling up this mountain of a career.  I shouldn't be snubbing my nose at a film with a cool $1-2 mill budget and guaranteed theatrical release.  Even if the script is a pile of shit.  (And it really is.)

Okaaay.  I guess I'll go learn my lines.  I can't wait for the day when I will be allowed to laugh when garbage like this gets sent to me.  I look forward to the day when I can politely say, "hell no!!"

Until then, we'll take what comes our way.  My agent later said, "Plus, 40 year olds still play 20s. Attitude is everything.  Well... Botox for some."

Thankfully, neither of us think I am remotely close to thinking about Botox.

The Show Must Go On

Somewhere a camera starts rolling.  Somewhere a stage awaits.  Somewhere a mark is just waiting to be hit.  Lines are itching to be learned.  The show must and always will go on.  So must my career. 

You may have noticed, I took a breather.  A little vacation.  I always think I should let you know when I'm about to do that because you keep coming back here even when I'm not writing.  But some of the fun is not knowing, right?  Right?? 

I wish I were the type of girl who's so together that I could know exactly when I'm about to hit burnout mode and politely tell all my friends/family/readers that I am about to go off the grid for a stretch.  I wish I were so together that I could look at my calendar and think, "Okay, here's where I'm going to need to take a month to just clear the Hollywood fog out of my brain," and schedule it in like a boss.  I bet Gweneth Paltrow is that together.

Sadly, I'm not that together girl.  Sometimes I don't know I'm headed for a mental vacation until I'm three days into a carb and netflix binge that ends with me getting in my car and driving up the PCH until the sun goes down.  I blame it on my creative nature.  I blame it on my obsessive nature.  I blame it on my ambition that sometimes drives me into the ground. I blame it on the brutality of this business.  It's okay though, all that actually makes me stronger and drives me forward.  Also, I know you'll be okay.  Because you know I'll always come back.  I'll always find my way back to these keys to keep telling you about this crazy ride into a career on the big screen.

Fair warning for next year: this time of year is sort of check-out time anyway.  Episodic season wraps in May.  Summer features are often cast by then too.  Most of the overworked, underpaid, under-appreciated people in this industry are fed up with each other and check out during the early summer months.  I'm no different.  After having nearly landed my first pilot, after having gotten close-but-no-cigar on half a dozen shows and movies, after abruptly losing my closest agent, I just needed a Break-with-a-capital-B.  

So I took one.  I hiked.  I traveled.  I painted.  I drew.  I sang.  I wrote.  I read.  I sewed.  I yoga-ed.  I wine-ed.  I dined.  I needed to create a bunch of art for the sake of creating art and without needing permission from a CD or a producer to do it.  I needed to play just to play.  I needed to live just to live, laugh just to laugh and love just to love.   I took a royal leave from this unending, often unrewarding grind.  I clearly needed it, and should have done it way sooner.  It took me a little longer than it should have re-ignite my motivation, but we got 'er restarted.  We're back in business baby.  And we're poised for one helluva ride this year.  

Stay tuned... much to share...

Give What You Have Today and Let Tomorrow Happen Tomorrow

We've talked ad nauseam on the difficulties of chasing this dream.  It's inconsistent.  It's incredibly fickle.  It's beyond competitive.  It's expensive.  Most days it seems that no one would even give a damn if you stayed or walked away.  And most of it is largely out of your control.  There is also this other thing.  This difficulty that's a little less tangible but is always there... it's the deep, deep desire to be good to be brilliant.  I mean, that's really why we do it all anyway, isn't it?  To be a truly great artist and be the vehicle through which we tell incredible stories that will last long after we are gone.

On the surface, that seems like a purely good thing, right?  It is a good thing, but it can also be terribly crippling.  I've been there, when the desire to be great (and the fear that I wasn't) stopped me from trying.  I didn't want to take new headshots, not until I lost those five extra pounds.  I didn't want to go to workshops until I really felt like I was on top of my game.  I didn't want to go to class because I felt rusty and I was worried I wouldn't be as good as I imagined I could be.  I didn't want to throw my entire soul behind it just yet.  Not until everything was perfect.  

But the truth is... it's never perfect.  And neither are you.  And your best today may make you cringe five years from now.  But if you constantly put it off because you're waiting for brilliance to just... happen... I think you might find yourself waiting a long time, and perhaps never truly going for it. 

Three years ago, just before I started this blog, this truth settled in me and changed my career.  It changed my life.  I decided I had to do the very best I could right now and forget about needing it to be perfect.  I would do the very best I could with the skills and resources I had right now, and if I did that every day, I would inevitably grow over time.  I do look back on some of the stuff I was really proud of three years ago and chuckle.  It's not amazing, but had I not done it, I wouldn't be looking back towards it from the place I'm in now.

I had one of the most difficult auditions I've ever had this week.  It was a producer session for a top of show guest star on a major show.  While a big credit like that doesn't necessarily come along every week for me, I have been there before.  It wasn't the size of role or the money on the line that terrified me... it was one of the most complex characters I've ever had to create.  Seven pages of dialog that consisted of mostly me talking, more emotional layers than I had ever worked on before, and less than twenty four hours in which to create them.  And crying.  Lots and lots of crying.

I actually broke down into tears in front of my roommate the morning of the audition because I was so terrified that I didn't have enough time to get it all together.  I felt like I had a final exam in three hours and someone had just handed me a text book and said it would all be on the test.  This role was no cream puff, just-be-your-charming-self-and-you'll-do-fine kind of role.  Nailing that level of complexity in the audition (i.e. a single take) with two separate scenes back to back that required totally different emotional states is tough.  (Understatement of the century.)  I would have to be on my A game in order to book it.  No, my AAAAAAA+++ game.  It was that hard.  It was fucking scary.  In that situation, the temptation to just walk away and avoid the whole situation (and thus the hard work and potential heartbreak) is very, very real.

But this is what this hustle is all about.  I found a way to swallow my fear and let go of having to make it perfect.  It took so much out of me that I'm here, two days later and my energy is just finally returning.  Not only because it was incredibly emotionally exhausting to go to the dark place in which the character lived, but also because I didn't get the job.

I know one of the show's producer's really well, so I got a lot of great feedback and honest insight into my audition.  He was in the session and we chatted after the role went to someone else.  We discussed some ways I could have given a stronger performance, but he was overall encouraging and thrilled that the casting team and producers were able to meet me.  (He even told me the other producers discussed how strong some elements of my audition were... and how pretty I am.  Huzzah! I'll take it. Every little bit counts.)  

After everything, I'm proud of myself and giving it my all even in the face of real fear.  Perhaps this one was just a little beyond my ability today, but three years ago, there's just no way.  Maybe next week... next month... or next year, I will get better at delivering a character of that caliber in the audition room.  Booking or not, I grew as a performer this week.  If I do that after every audition, I'm on the right track.

As an added bonus, there was a little moment in my conversation with this producer that nearly made my heart burst.  It was so small, he probably didn't even notice it happened.  When chatting about auditions and the future, he said, 

"When you're super famous, you won't even have to worry about that."

It wasn't tongue-in-cheek, the way people often say it, like, "Will you still remember me when you're super famous?  Haha *wink, wink."  He said it very casually and just matter of fact, as if it were inevitable.  He didn't even say it as encouragement.  It was just, "we're here now and eventually you won't have to deal with that because I know you will be big enough it won't touch you."  Coming from a producer of multiple hit shows... that's a big deal.  

So here's to giving everything we have today so that we can give even more tomorrow.  Good luck out there, peeps.

Monday Morning Surprise

Just when you start to get used to your routine and the foundation you've built for your career...

I was arranging a guest star audition today and got an email from another agent at the office.  My agent has left!  Holy smokes, kind of a shocker!! 

Well, actually not a total shocker.  My agent has been out of town for a few weeks and was taking abnormally long to respond to my emails.  For some reason I was kind of getting the hunch that something was brewing, but hadn't asked.  And the truth is, he didn't know that something was brewing in me too.  I love my agent, you know I do.  He's been hugely supportive and open to my extra-involved style of hustle.  When he signed me, he was open about being unsure just how much he could do for me at my level.  We decided to go for it, had some great times, but so far not a ton has happened.  Not that he hasn't tried, but I may just need a little extra "try." 

The timing on this is crazy, maybe even destiny.  (I can't help it.  I'm just cheesy.)  I had gone to a seminar last week to say a quick hello to an industry contact with whom I keep in touch.  It just so happened that there was an agent on the panel who perked my interest enough, I actually set up a coffee meet-up with a friend who's repped there... just to hear feedback.  He sounded like someone I may want on my side and I just wanted first-hand experience from an actor repped at that office.  It wasn't that I had made any decisions about moving, I just felt intrigued to find out all I could.  To be aware of what's out there.  I was actually kind of torn about my growing desire to make a decision to leave or stay with my current rep.

So perhaps it is perfect timing that my agent left the office.  I have a meeting set up with the other agents this week to discuss me and moving forward.  The result of the meeting will be interesting.  We're basically deciding if we'd like to stay with each other...

While I know what, I know I'll be fine, I admit there's still a little fear.  Who knows what will happen... I could be dropped and be without theatrical representation again, a tough place to be when you're still fighting for network credits.  I could love the other agents (who I've basically never dealt with, and if you remember, they all passed on me when my ex-agent signed me) and we could continue to work under the same roof.  Or I could pass on them and leave for another agency... where would I land?  Somewhere better?  Somewhere worse??

There's just a lot up in the air, but it's a natural part of the process.  One thing you can always count on in this business... it will always change on you, many times in ways out of your control.  No matter what, we have to keep up the good fight.  Keep pushing this train down the tracks.  There's only one way to go...

Forward.